(Item Concept) Fixing Mana

Ad blocker interference detected!

Wikia is a free-to-use site that makes money from advertising. We have a modified experience for viewers using ad blockers

Wikia is not accessible if you’ve made further modifications. Remove the custom ad blocker rule(s) and the page will load as expected.

Let's talk about mana. As a resource system, it's fundamental to the workings of most champions in League of Legends, and is the most common resource in gaming, right after ammunition in shooters. It's a simple, easily recognizable and effective way of gating the use of abilities, and in League it also plays an important part in forcing certain champions to return to base, as they would otherwise be able to stay indefinitely in lane. However, in League specifically, mana isn't really in the best state, for several reasons: many champions feel gated far too strictly by mana, and that's often a deliberate decision to have them integrate into mana itemization, yet mana and mana regen aren't fun or interesting stats to buy. There's much more to this, which you can read in the last tab, but the core issue with mana, in my opinion, is that it's not in good shape specifically because of mana itemization, and without it, mana champions should have a resource system that is self-sufficient.

Champions

All mana champions now have 100 mana at all levels and their mana costs adjusted around that pool.

Notes

Glacial Shroud is a core item for a fair amount of tanky items, and is considered the core armor + CDR item. Until now, the mana's also been important to the item's power, as most tanks are expected to purchase mana in order to bolster their relatively small pools. However, in spite of this, the mana itself is not an interesting purchase, and in the case of Frozen Heart and Iceborn Gauntlet bloats up to large amounts when that power could be spent making those items more interesting. As such, concentrating its power around armor would make it an even more attractive purchase for tanky champions also looking to cast more often.

I made a separate tab for Iceborn Gauntlet, but here I think it's worth talking about Frozen Heart: in spite of its aura and pretty nice stats, the item's just not interesting. Frozen Fist has similar stats but a more interesting effect, and Randuin's Omen fills a similar niche, only better. As an aura item, it also runs the issue of having a lot of diluted power, and Cold Steel's effect in particular is not even all that visible when used on marksmen or light fighters, the only classes majorly affected by it. Because of this, I think it would be worth removing both the item and Warden's Mail, and changing Omen a little to have a shorter, though more powerful slow. The end result should be a smaller overall pool of Glacial Shroud items (only two on Summoner's Rift), though one particularly well-oriented towards heavy armor stackers.

Iceborn Gauntlet

Iceborn Gauntlet

Stats

Passive

Unique - Spellblade: After using an ability, your next basic attack within 10 seconds deals 100% armor bonus physical damage to the main target and surrounding enemies, and creates a field for 2 seconds that slows enemies inside by 30%. Zone's range is 100% armor, 1.5-second cooldown.

Recipe

Cost

Sell

Code

3000 [[File:Gold.png|18px|link=Gold]]</span> (750 )

2100 [[File:Gold.png|18px|link=Gold]]</span>

N/A

Changes

Notes

Iceborn Gauntlet's a solid pick for offensively-oriented tanky champions, though a lot of its power's been sunk into a large amount of mana. Removing the stat from Sheen and Glacial Shroud while bolstering its armor-to-offense theme should preserve the item's overall power while shifting it even more towards its niche.

Magebloom

Stats

Passive

Unique - Echo: Gains charges upon moving, attacking or casting. At 100 charges, the next instance of ability damage you deal expends all charges to deal 7% (+ 1% per 100 AP) of target's current health bonus magic damage to the first enemy hit. Large monsters take 50 + (25 × level) bonus magic damage instead and send out smaller bolts that deal half that damage to nearby small monsters.

Changes

Unique passive - Echo: Moving, attacking and casting builds charges. At 100, your next ability consumes the charges and deals 7% (+ 1% per 100 AP) of target's current health bonus magic damage. Against large monsters, deal them 50 + (25 × level) bonus magic damage instead and send out bolts that deal half that damage to the small monsters in their camp.

Luden's Echo's passive is now named Echo, and does not stack with Magebloom's passive.

Notes

I'm not a fan of Runeglaive. Not just because of the mana, but also because the item itself only works with a handful of AP champions, and leaves most potential AP junglers, especially mage junglers (hello Fiddlesticks) in the dust. Just from a mana perspective, though, the item seeks to solve an issue that needs, or at least needed, to be addressed from the first clear, which is that of AP champions struggling with their mana in the jungle. I think a lot of it boils down to AP champions just having mana costs that are too high in general, but some of it also has to do with the jungle not being too well-adapted to mages. Ideally, mages should have the costs and mana restoration to let them clear properly, so the bonus from Healing Sigil could be adjusted accordingly, and should be able to access an AP item that works for them too. The issue with Spellblade is that it's an autoattack-focused effect, but an effect like the one on Luden's Echo would likely be more appropriate, as it's dependent on moving and casting, something all AP junglers already do very well. AP assassins would still have the advantage of superior mobility, but mages would still be able to power their clears with casts and, if they're lacking in mana, movement and basic attacks (this is a major difference with Luden's, and would be more adapted for a jungle-focused item). The current health effect is intended to provide a burst of initial damage while ganking without providing too much damage afterwards, and should give AP junglers some more target- and snowball-agnostic power overall.

This tab is probably also a good spot to talk about Crest of Insight: right now, it's the AP champion buff, and is iconic to the mid lane ecosystem as a means for mages to assert dominance. There are, however, many issues with the buff: in lane, its main use is to simply out-regen the enemy laner and win by attrition, so while its ability to lay down extra pressure is good, its relatively passive means of doing so isn't. On top of that, the buff loses relevance once mages get regen items and CDR, even with its scaling AP, and the bonuses it provides are almost completely useless on a vast number of champions, which also affects how some of them can jungle, as it locks out some paths. I think the solution would be to concentrate the buff into a periodic burst of power, one that would encourage its wielder to go fully on the offensive for at least a few seconds. Not only would this be beneficial to the jungler when clearing or ganking (squishy, mana-dependent or otherwise magey junglers would make great use of the shield and temporary resourcelessness), it would also allow mid laners to make awesome and daring plays they wouldn't otherwise think of doing, whether it be due to the risk involved or them wanting to conserve resources. Additionally, the buff would remain relevant even in the late game, as its shield would be pretty strong.

Righteous Glory

Righteous Glory

Stats

Active

Unique: Grants 60% bonus movement speed to you and nearby allies when moving towards enemies for 3 seconds. When this speed boost ends, it emits a shockwave, slowing nearby enemy champions by 80% for one second. 90 second cooldown.

Recipe

Cost

Sell

Code

2600 [[File:Gold.png|18px|link=Gold]]</span> (950 )

1820 [[File:Gold.png|18px|link=Gold]]</span>

N/A

Changes

Notes

Not much to say here. Mana was never the centerpiece of Righteous Glory's power or even related to it, and the removal of Valor's Reward from it meant that it wasn't even that appropriate for it to build out of Catalyst the Protector. Removing its mana and buffing its health would likely be power-agnostic overall for mana champions and a buff to manaless tanks and bruisers (e.g. Shyvana), though one that would either work out fine or could be adjusted if needed.

Notes

Ardent Censer is probably a sleeper OP item right now, as its stats are pretty nice and its unique passive can be very strong in the right hands, but it still fails to achieve the relevance it deserves. I think the main reason is because of its wide spread of stats (offering four coveted stats at once means none of them can be truly meaty on their own), but also because of the specificity of its bonus, which really benefits attack speed-dependent marksmen but doesn't seem as attractive on most other champions (even though it is). I still think it would be cool for this item to work especially well on rapid-firing champions, but it would likely become a lot more popular an item for AP-stacking supports if it had stats on par with a proper mage item, only with a utility-centric effect.

Notes

Mikael's Crucible currently is, in my opinion, one of the last remnants of "true" support items, i.e. items designed not so much to benefit the support themselves, but to give them additional utility to help others. The item effectively removes the wielder's mana gates completely, and that power also draws heavily upon its total budget, along with the active. I proposed a rework to crowd control removal here, which turns Quicksilver Sash from a CC removal item to a spell shield item, though even without that change it would still make sense for Mikael's to be the AP Quicksilver item. Because it would overlap so heavily with Athene's Unholy Grail in stats, and because the latter item's identity revolves so heavily around mana regen, I think it would be worth removing Grail (as well as Chalice of Harmony, whose passive is archaic anyway) as well. Perhaps this would cause mid laners to pick Mikael's, particularly when faced against an assassin, but I think that could be healthy and interesting, particularly since the item's mediocre AP and defensive build path would mainly force its use as a fallback item, rather than the do-everything stat stick that is currently Athene's.

Frost Queen's Claim

Stats

Passive

Unique - Tribute:Basic attacks, summoned ghosts and damaging abilities against enemy champions or structures deal 15 bonus magic damage and grant 15 . This can occur up to 3 times every 30 seconds.Upon collecting 500 with this item and its components, consume this item's bonus income generation and increase its passive's magic damage by 20% AP.Limited to 1 Gold Income item.

Active

Summon 2 icy ghosts for 6 seconds that seek out nearby enemy champions. Ghosts reveal enemies on contact and slow them by 40% for 4 seconds. 60 second cooldown.

New passive: upon collecting 500 from the item and its predecessors' passive gold generation and Spoils of War, remove the item's gold generation and increase the heal by 2% maximum health.

Notes

The blue support item line is intended to be best directed towards AP supports, in particular aggressive supports willing and able to poke and trade. Its Tribute effect succeeds perfectly at that, and Frost Queen's Claim's new active has made it a phenomenal initiation and tracking item as well, yet the line suffers from the same issues as every other AP support item, namely terrible AP and late-game slot efficiency. The most relevant change here is the removal of mana regen in favor of extra AP, bringing it up to decent mage item levels, and on top of that I think the item line, even all support item lines, could take a page from Cull and swap out its gold gen for more power once a certain threshold is reached. The limit's intended to be high, and I may have aimed too high or too low, but it's mainly intended to provide support items with better eventual slot efficiency (I'm not a fan of the current Sightstone upgrades, which have proven unsuccessful thus far).

Talisman of Ascension

Stats

Passive

Unique – Favor: Being near a minion death without dealing the killing blow grants 6 and heals for 10. 1400 range.Upon collecting 500 with this item and its components, consume this item's bonus income and preserve the passive bonus movement speed even in combat.Limited to 1 Gold Income item.

New passive: upon collecting 500 from Favor, remove the item's gold generation and render the bonus movement speed permanent.

Notes

The yellow support item line is a bit awkward to handle, as its stat distribution is closer to the more traditional model of support items, i.e. lots of mana regen, not too much self-oriented power but hugely powerful team utility. If there's one thing the mana regen could be swapped out for here, it should be movement speed. The addition of movement speed to the item line made it interesting as a choice for roamers, and allowed slower caster supports to still benefit a lot from the active, and its removal consequently left something amiss. Since I also want to remove boots, I think it might be cool to add the effects from Boots of Mobility onto here, particularly since it's an important item to many supports. Bonus movespeed out of combat would cater well to the item line's focus on more passive play, and would allow its wielders more freedom to roam and go out to ward without losing too much on Favor. As with the other support items, I think it could be interesting to add a bonus analogous to that on Cull and exchange the item's gold generation for better bonuses past a certain threshold. Perhaps the resulting bonus might be a fair bit too large (it might be better for the bonus to be halved in combat instead), but the core idea is that this item should eventually lead to better mobility in teamfights, which caster supports would appreciate due to their innate squishiness.

Changes

Notes

Buffing the bonus damage feels like a no-brainer on Elixir of Sorcery. The mana regen isn't all that great in the late game, when mana gates are at their weakest and most champions have a lot of bonus mana regen already on live, and the AP is meant to be decent but not great. I'm not sure about the exact number tweaks needed to buff the passive, but the intent is to make the bonus damage significant without being too strong early or later on (by contrast, the current true damage proc is likely balanced around level 9, and can't be allowed to be too strong for fear of becoming overbearing then).

Obviously, changing one of the central systems in League is bound to mess a lot of stuff up. For in-depth changes to specific items, I recommend you check the other tabs; this one's to list all the mana champions that would be affected:

Annie'sDisintegrate now restores 20 mana on kill. This is intended to be the cost of the ability. Seeing how that would be extremely expensive in the late-game, perhaps it would be worth decreasing that cost somewhat, at least over time (without lowering the mana restore), though it would be good to preserve Annie's dependence on her farming minigame even beyond the laning phase.

Shield changed to 30% maximum health from 50% current mana. This would likely be a buff, and so might warrant further changes. There's a lot to Blitz that's awesome and iconic, but he likely needs to change, as he's a bit of a one-trick pony right now. Basing the shield off of current mana isn't really the best idea, since Blitz is, and should be, encouraged to spend big dollops of mana on trying to pull and disable targets.

Mana restoration is 10 mana, increased to 100 mana on enemy champion kills. I recommend you check the rework post for a more complete picture, but the core idea here is that I'm removing her E spam mechanic in favor of a more opportunistic nuke/execution skill, designed to provide Cass with better high moments in the middle of combat, while still keeping her unique mana conservation in lane.

Cho'Gath'sCarnivore no longer restores mana. The compensation to this should be that Cho should have much cheaper abilities, but right now the issue with his passive is that it lets him stay in lane indefinitely when dominant, which adds onto the binariness of his ult to make him unnecessarily difficult to shove out of lane even as he plays super-passively and gets a lead without putting himself at risk.

Darius'Crippling Strike now restores 10 mana from 30 mana. This is intended to be the ability's cost. Perhaps it might be better to just remove this effect in favor of a more forgiving or even free W, but for the time being this would be the closest translation from one system to another.

Evelynnreworked and no longer gains special mana regeneration. Currently, Eve is meant to run out of mana quickly when ganking early on. My rework intends to give her different power gating, which would also allow her to be less mana-hungry.

Irelia'sBladesurge now restores 10 mana from 35 mana. This is intended to resemble the initial mana restore, and should probably be either half of the ability's cost or the entire cost. The ability itself could perhaps reduce in cost over time, which would allow Irelia to eventually restock on mana later in the game through farming. She's in dire need of a rework, but this could add some more luster to her current Q minigame.

Jayce'sLightning Field now restores 2 mana on-hit from 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 / 14 / 16 mana. This would map more or less onto the current curve of mana restored relative to Jayce's mana pool. He might need some tweaks to his kit, and perhaps the removal of this mana restoration passive, but currently it's useful in giving him more incentives to not just stay in cannon mode all the time.

Karthus'Defile now restores 4 mana on kill from 20 / 27 / 34 / 41 / 48 mana. I'm not a big fan of this effect, and would prefer to ditch it in favor of more organic mana gates elsewhere, but this would do for the transition.

Kassadinreworked, and Riftwalk now costs an initial 1 mana per second, doubling each second. This probably makes little sense in a live context, but my intention is to rework Kassadin so that he becomes more focused around being an anti-mage, and his ult lets him completely ignore terrain collision while held, at a significant drain in mana over time. Afterwards, he'd get to restore mana via anti-magey stuff. In the process, I also removed the mana scaling, and the damage, on his ult.

Malzahar'sMalefic Visions now restores 2 mana on kill from 10 / 14 / 18 / 22 / 26 mana. As with Karthus and his own E, I dislike this particular mana restoration effect, as it's mainly there to prop up Malz's otherwise excessive mana consumption without adding as much gameplay as it could. Unlike Defile's passive, though, it might be possible to improve this effect, though likely through tweaks to Malzahar's kit.

Base damage reduced to 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 from 36 / 52 / 68 / 84 / 100. Ryze is dependent on mana right now for his per-level power increases and overall power curve, and would suffer a little as a result from the changes, particularly since mana is iconic to him. In spite of this, I question the use of mana as a resource on him, as he's meant to be a spammy champion, and I don't think mana in itself really is that interesting even on him, particularly since his recent rework prevents him from dipping into too many defensive mana options. He could probably use more in-depth tweaks, but the above should give him a similarly smooth power curve.

Singedreworked and no longer scales off of mana. The mana-to-health scaling is meant to make Singed feel good when buying the mana he needs, but the end result is just a boring stats-for-stats passive that often leads to trap choices. I think the better solution should be to instead change Singed's mana gates a little in order to not make him feel terrible when being Singed without bonus mana.

Sivir'sSpell Shield now restores 20 mana from 80 / 95 / 110 / 125 / 140 mana. This would be a nerf to her immediate early game, but a buff to her late game. The advantage to a system like this is that it would allow Sivir to always restore a large amount of mana without having to resort to a special scaling formula on her E, or tuning her gains to be either too good too early, too crappy later on, or vice versa.

Skarner'sCrystal Spires now restore an additional 2 mana per second from 2% maximum mana. This would incur no real change.

Ravenous Flock now costs 5 mana per second, increasing by 1 mana per additional second. Overall, the changes to his restoration would be a slight nerf to his farming, and a small buff when killing champions, whereas the changes to his ult would be a late-game nerf. Swain is a weird champion, but more importantly he needs proper gates to his sustain. These changes wouldn't answer those, but would force a hard limit on his bird mode, one that he wouldn't be able to increase with items. He should likely receive buffs elsewhere as a result, though his small pick rate makes it hard to gauge just how good he is now.

Twisted Fate'sBlue Card now restores 20 mana from 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 mana. This would be a buff, one that would increase in significance as the game goes on, so if he gets too hard to dislodge from lane this should probably get nerfed. I dislike Blue Card, as it's not really that rich in gameplay and forces TF's other mana costs to be overly high, and I'd like it to be replaced by a more interesting effect, though that's likely something for another post.

Urgot'sTerror Capacitor now scales with 5% maximum health instead of 8% maximum mana. Let's face it, Urgot's getting overhauled eventually, but within this framework the crippling mana issues used to keep him in check would remain relevant throughout the whole game. He wouldn't scale with mana or mana items anymore, but would make up for it with tanky scalings, which would also fit his playstyle.

Varus'Piercing Arrow now restores 10 mana on cancel from 35 / 37.5 / 40 / 42.5 / 45 mana. This is intended to be half the ability's initial cost. The numbers are likely off, and he should perhaps have a far cheaper Q, or a cost that ramps down. The mana restore could also potentially disappear in favor of a cost that would only apply upon firing the projectile, which would be a buff to his Q canceling.

Veigarreworked and no longer gains bonus mana regeneration. Veigar's passive never really defined him or provided any real gameplay, and only exists as a crutch to let him farm in lane without running OOM too quickly. I moved his AP-on-kill passive to his innate, and tweaked him from there.

Arcanopulse now restores 10 mana on cancel from 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60 mana. The passive restoration is intended to mirror the innate scaling, while factoring in bonus mana in the late game, and the refund on Q is intended to be half the ability's cost.

This part's just for non-mana champions. It might sound weird and pointless to touch manaless champions with already well-established resource systems, in particular energy champions, but the intent here is to standardize resource pools to 100-point systems, for purposes of comparison (e.g. clear evidence that energy abilities are far more expensive than mana abilities) but most importantly for the possibility of future resource-altering effects. I don't want any champion to become dependent on an external source to have their resource function, but it could be interesting to have a champion who could, say, give a massive resource generation boost for a few seconds in order to enable limitless casting, and this standard would make it a lot easier to implement.

All champions' resources are now capped at 100.

Aatrox now stores 1 point in his Blood Well per 1.05 - 8.70 (based on level)health he consumes, healing for the same amount per point upon triggering his passive. This is meant to map onto his current Blood Well storage, and would also clarify his attack speed gains per point. This could happen anyway without a whole standardization process going on, though Aatrox himself could use some major changes, as his kit fails to deliver on a satisfying gameplay and thematic fantasy.

Rengar now generates 20 Ferocity per ability and consumes 100 Ferocity on empowered attacks. Since Rengar's Ferocity isn't really important on a point-by-point basis, it would be easy to just multiply all the values by 20.

Crescent Slash cost reduced to 28 / 26 / 24 / 22 / 20 energy from 60 / 55 / 50 / 45 / 40 energy. These are all slight early game buffs. Akali's early game is notoriously terrible, so this should give her a few more options early on as she waits for a retune.

Lightning Rush cost reduced to 50 / 48 / 46 / 44 / 42 energy from 100 / 95 / 90 / 85 / 80 energy. These are slight energy consumption nerfs, and a slightly larger buff on Kennen's innate generation, intended to reward him more for shocking multiple enemies. Kennen's costs are a little on the high side, mainly because of his passive, though at least the latter allows him to refill on energy when executing daring initiations.

Lee Sinreworked into a manaless champion. This makes no sense out of context, so I urge you to check the post itself before making a judgment here. Basically, I made Lee properly blind but super-OP in every other respect, which would mean he wouldn't need energy to gate the use of his abilities, as he'd be gated by his own lack of vision.

Shadow Dash cost reduced to 48 / 46 / 44 / 42 / 40 energy from 100 / 95 / 90 / 85 / 80 energy. Out of all the ninjas, Shen's the cleanest to map onto a 100-point system. The only change here is a slight buff to his early E usage, which would likely be fine, considering its huge cost.

Other items adjusted to no longer provide mana or mana regeneration, but provide other bonuses instead (see other tabs).

Hunter's Talisman and its upgrades no longer provide bonus mana regeneration. The idea here is that mana champions shouldn't suffer from mana issues in the jungle in the first place, and if their mana gates are too strict, then there's likely an issue (either they're unfit to jungle, or more likely their abilities are too costly).

Essence Reavertweaked and no longer restores mana. Let's face it, Essence Reaver isn't picked for the mana restoration. I don't think the item really needs to provide mana sustain on top of top-tier AD and CDR, and considering how powerful the item is, it's worth trimming down its less interesting power in favor of its tremendous cooldown reduction.

Hextech Sweeper turned into a trinket on all non Summoner's Rift maps, and effects changed (see here for more information).

Masteries

Meditation removed. In spite of the recent mastery overhaul, I think the mastery system is fundamentally flawed, as it doesn't provide all that much meaningful choice. If masteries are to stay, another should take the place of Meditation, but otherwise I'd rather remove them all and buff champions accordingly.

Runes

Runes of mana, both flat and scaling, removed.

Runes of mana regeneration, both flat and scaling, removed. Worse even than masteries, runes not only provide a lot of power without any real gameplay, strategy or even variation, but do so in a manner that isn't really that appreciable in-game. Whether or not the system stays, these runes should be removed in view of these changes, but I'd rather remove all runes entirely, particularly since they also form an expensive barrier to entry in a game that's already harsh on newcomers.

Jungle

Crest of Insight reworked: no longer provides its current bonuses, but instead causes the wielder to be shielded for 5 seconds by 60 + (30 × level) upon damaging an enemy champion or large monster, incurring no mana or energy costs to their abilities while the shield holds. This effect has a 20-second static cooldown, starting with the shield appearing, before it becomes available again. Blue buff is core to the pacing of many mid laners, as it helps a ton in alleviating their mana gates, but the end result is usually that those champions end up gaining a lane advantage in the least interesting way possible, namely by just running OOM a bit later than their opponent, unless the latter also get a blue buff and engineer a stalemate. Additionally, the buff becomes significantly less useful as the game progresses, when mana champions get the CDR and mana regeneration they need. The above version of Blue Buff is intended to encourage mid laners to win by making daring plays and alleviate some of their health and mana costs when doing so, while also giving fragile or mana-dependent junglers the staying power they need to survive their first clears, and perhaps even potential invades.

Healing Sigil now restores 25 mana.

Maps

Mana regeneration doubled to 2 per second (10 per 5) on the Crystal Scar, Twisted Treeline and Murder Bridge.

Initially, this wall of text was meant to be in the introductory paragraph, but as it turns out, there's a lot to say about mana. Here are a few of the issues I think are core to the system right now:

Mana champions feel too restricted: Having mana feels like a burden, not just because many champions out there aren't gated so heavily in lane (e.g. energy and fury champions, though they have, or are supposed to have, innate weaknesses in their own kits), but also because many mana champions just don't have the mana they need: even when played perfectly, many champions end up running out of mana too fast or too often, some because they were deliberately given crippling mana issues to control their unhealthy kits (Yorick or pre-rework Poppy, for example), and others because they're expected to dip into mana itemization and thus need to be innately deficient. By contrast, even the most resource-hungry manaless champions, like Shen or Kennen, don't feel like they need an item or other effect to cover their issues, as their resource limit, generation and costs are designed to be completely self-sufficient, and as a result their ability gating does not need to be suboptimally strict in order for them to integrate into itemization. In the case of champions who don't have particularly strict mana gating, dipping into mana itemization essentially turns them into manaless champions, which is currently what caster supports inevitably become, due to the heap of mana regen stuck on support items, and so mana loses its significance as a resource.

Mana and Mana Regen aren't fun stats: Whereas pretty much any stat has an immediate, tangible effect (e.g. "my abilities deal more damage" or "I take less damage from these champions"), mana and mana regen don't, and consequently feel like wasted stats, including on champions who need to buy them (e.g. Yorick). Additionally, on top of being totally useless for manaless champions, who are forced to spend gold on mana for otherwise very interesting items (e.g. Trinity Force, Righteous Glory), both stats do genuinely become wasteful on all but the most mana-hungry champions come late game, which reduces their power at a point where they should have the most late-game freedom (mana is meant to be a serious gate in laning which becomes less strict over time). On a more abstract level, neither stat is ever going to be that healthy in itemization, because they innately devalue mana gates, rendering them less meaningful and, barring mana-related scalings, are pretty much designed to do just that.

Champions are distorted around mana items: As a whole, mana is pretty inconsistent, and unnecessarily so. An ability that costs 100 mana might be massively expensive on a champion like Vayne, but might be just fine on Karthus, and champions like Darius, with cheap spells and terrible mana regeneration, don't look like they match up to champions like Morgana, with expensive spells and top-tier mana regen, even though their spell gating ends up being pretty similar in actuality. The current implementation of mana, i.e. as a stat that expands over time, also creates awkward ability costs, which end up increasing as you rank them up: from a high-level perspective, it makes sense, as you'd want to prevent some champions from suddenly ignoring their mana gates, but from a player perspective it feels terrible and counter-intuitive: ranking up an ability should only be beneficial, yet the increased mana cost is a malus, one that can lead to large dips in mana usage in lane (with Fizz or Syndra, for example). These differences only exist to accomodate for itemization, generally to push tanks towards raw mana and casters towards mana regen, and end up engineering really awkward mana cost curves in the process.

As we've seen in early Preseason 6 with the removal of mana potions, itemizing around mana tends to not only be binary and uninteresting (e.g. "Get mana potions if your champion has mana problems, don't if they don't"), but also unhealthy for champions themselves, who end up needing to purchase mana just because they themselves cannot function properly if they don't. Riot's been looking for ways to make mana more interesting and valuable as a purchasable stat to mana champions, but in the end mana is not a fun stat in itself, so any attempt to add gameplay to it could likely be done without it. I hope I get proven wrong on this, but as it stands now the most efficient solution seems to be the removal of mana itemization.

A warning, the whole post is a bit long, and there's a lot of stuff that needs to be explained in order for this to make sense. What do you think about the state of mana as it is now? What direction would you like to see taken with mana and mana champions? What do you think about mana champions as a group, and how would you improve them if needed?